Smartphone-based Devices for Biomarkers

Over the last decade, smartphone technology has advanced to an extraordinary extent. This has introduced novel capabilities to these hand-held devices, such as the conceptualization of mobile health, which has been made possible via the integration of high-quality camera lenses, heart-rate sensors, accelerometers, and fingerprint/facial recognition scanners into modern smartphones. These features, alongside their powerful multi-core processors, ample memory and storage, long battery life, and user-friendly interface, enable modern smartphones with significant potential for other medical applications. Many researchers have begun developing biosensors that can be used in conjunction with smartphones, in order to meet the REASSURED criteria (real time connectivity, ease of specimen collection, affordability, sensitivity and specificity, user-friendliness, rapid and robust, equipment-free and environment friendly (mobile devices allowed), deliverable to end-users) for point-of-care testing. This chapter presents a review and analysis of such smartphone-based devices that have been paired with various biomarkers for the detection of dangerous pathogens and chemicals, as well as disease diagnosis.